


the long and short of it

by jack_inaboxx



Series: crack in the glass [8]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Other, Undefined - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:34:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24560002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jack_inaboxx/pseuds/jack_inaboxx
Summary: All the little bits of mirror that wouldn't fit back into the frame.
Relationships: Alex | Alexis Daher/Mal Riviere
Series: crack in the glass [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1774129





	1. Not Quite How It Happened

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of the short things I've written in response to prompts on Tumblr.

41\. Guardian Angel AU

—| |—

When he fell from that cliff, he was sure he was dead, absolutely certain. 

And yet- somehow- he isn’t. 

He hurts- oh, how he hurts- but he is, as far as he can tell, still alive. He is soaked, utterly, and lying on the banks of- some body of water. He can feel where his back was torn open by the rocks of the cliff, and surely they ought to have been infected if he was out long enough to have drifted this far away from the cliffs- but they don’t feel hot or tight, like they would if they were infected. 

He searches his memory, trying to find anything, anything at all that could explain any of this- 

All he can recall after the gunshot is snow-white wings.

—| |—


	2. Balance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shhh.... you did well.

Good people do not get happy endings.

Some people do. The ones with normal lives, who aren’t bothered by ‘good’ or ‘evil’, who haven’t seen the darkness in life. They get to have their happily ever afters.

Some do- we aren’t any of them. 

It took me a long time to learn this- it took so much pain, and so many deaths, and everything to crash down just after I thought everything was okay, over and over, for me to realize.

Good people don’t get happy endings. 

Good people don’t get happy endings- and I hadn’t thought I was one, but the only people I’ve known to go through this much pain are the good ones. 

The ones trying to make things _right_. 

I will never have a happy ending- but maybe that’s okay. 

(It isn’t but if I let it the grief will kill me and I am not ready to go just yet)


	3. Regrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They know. Oh, they know.

Excerpt from Citylines; 

“This will kill you, in the end,” they say to him, in the dark, the kind full of secrets and old hurts. “Maybe not today, maybe not a year from now. But it will.”

 _I know_ , he does not say. They hear it anyway. 

And in that dark, (the kind full of secrets and old hurts), they say a goodbye, the final kind; because every day is a gift, and every goodbye could be the last.

They both know that better than most.


	4. Open Roads

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes there's songs, and sometimes there's poetry, and sometimes there's whatever this is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, I don't know what the fuck this is supposed to be either.

Open ranges, tired strangers,  
And an old outlaw’s song  
Losin’ bullets, iron pulpits,  
Sing it loud and long

Oh cos we ain’t gone, tomorrow  
No we ain’t gone today;  
We been gone forever  
Gone forever an’ a day

This is the outlaw’s song  
This is an outlaw’s song

An’ we’re wastin bullets,  
Losin’ wars; losin’ ours,  
Tossin’, turnin’, in the fire;

But we don’t let it take us  
We don’t let it make us  
Cos we’re already long gone

Oh, cos we ain’t gone, tomorrow  
No we ain’t gone today;  
We been gone forever  
Gone forever an’ a day

This is the outlaw’s song  
This is an outlaw’s song

We ain’t shaped by our lives  
Ain’t shaped by our loves;  
We ain’t shaped by the notches  
Oh the notches on our guns

Cos what all defines us  
Every last one  
Oh what all defines us  
Is the road we run

Oh, is the road we run  
Oh, the open road we run

Oh cos we ain’t gone, tomorrow  
No we ain’t gone today;  
We been gone forever  
Forever an’ a day

This is the outlaw’s song;  
Sing it loud and clear  
This is an outlaw’s song,   
To banish all your fear

This is the outlaw’s song;   
This is an outlaw’s song;

On the open road

On the open road we _run_.


	5. Shhhhh...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Listen close, child, to the shadow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so here's the thing. 
> 
> I sleepwalk. Or sleep SOMETHING, anyway. I frequently wake up crammed under things, or watching other people sleep, or pressed to the windows like if I only press hard enough I can slide through. 
> 
> Very rarely, I wake up staring at a story written on the screen, or in a notebook, sometimes on my arms. 
> 
> This is one of those. They scare me, if I'm honest, but I think that if I didn't put them out into the world I'd never stop thinking about them, and that's just unacceptable.

Who are we, to call the shadows our own?

_I don’t know who you are. But I know that the shadows are not mine; I am theirs. Or maybe we are one and the same._

_But you? Dispense with your philosophy, your introspection._

_The dark is no place for you._

But it is the place for you?

_I know no other. The light is too harsh, too cruel, to one who lives as I do, when I do at all. The dark is no place for you; the light is no place for me._

_The shadows are a far kinder mistress._

You say this, and insist I go back to the light- by your own admission, crueler.

 _Yes_.

So why, then, could I not be one with the dark as well?

 _No_.

That’s not a proper answer.

Hello?

You can’t just leave, we were in the middle of a conversation.

_You try my patience. At first you were amusing. Then boring. Now you are irritating, in the manner of a gnat buzzing about the head._

_Leave. I will not warn you again. The shadows are not kind to they who dwell in light. I will not save you if you are still here when they hunger._

Wh- when they hunger? What do you mean?

That doesn’t make any sense. How would-

\- oh-

Oh, gods save me.

_There are no gods here._


	6. Would I Lie To You?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don't think about it. Don't. That would make it real.

Had he known, at the time, that the choice he made today would change so _many_ things only a short week after, he would’ve- well, he would’ve chosen exactly the same, actually. 

But, all that aside, he really would’ve rather _known._

Of course, it doesn’t matter much _now_ given that everything’s falling down around his ears, it’s a miracle he hasn’t been crushed by _some_ falling stone or another (but then, mages are rather proficient in miracles, and it’s somewhat reminiscent of home). 

In the end, they make it out alright, though the chaos and the dust have a fear settle deep into his chest before he can make out enough to see that all of them are fine. He doesn’t acknowledge it. That might make it real.

Instead he clears his throat, looks them over, and says, gruffly, as though he hadn’t felt the ground dropping out from under him at the thought that any of them might be gone-

“Best get a move on, then.” He doesn’t ask how they are. He doesn’t offer comfort or empty words. 

After all, what good would it do?


	7. Lovers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They're too far apart and too close, all the wrong compliments.

Oh we lay there   
in  
the  
dark, 

Making wishes on _broken_ stars; 

All I _want_ is  
a fresh start;   
Try to heal my broken heart… 

Oh and as I fall asleep-  
In time, the ache will heal  
In time,   
the ache  
will heal

And as I sleep, I dream

(My dream is _of_ you) 

Oh we lay there, in the dark   
Making wishes on b r o k e n stars  
All I want is a fresh start;  
All I want is   
a  
fresh   
start

(But all I can do)   
(All I can do is lose you)

As I lay here chasing stars, 

Lying alone and  
in the dark- 

All I can think of is your smile  
Your smile, and the way you lie

And as I fall asleep

I hear you   
call  
to  
me

You say _you’re sor-ry_

But you don’t really care  
About- me. 

I try to fall asleep; but as I listen to my heart beat  
I think _oh, if only  
If only!_

Because maybe I wouldn’t be so lone-ly

I try to fall asleep  
In the dark; listen to my heart beat  
And I   
close  
my  
eyes  
And I   
breathe  
your   
lies  
Alone in the dark,   
I wish for your heart  
You ran off with mine  
And now I’m lost to time

Alone in the dark,   
I wish for your heart  
  
And as I fall asleep 

I wish I could believe. 


	8. an odd sort of companion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What do you call an enemy that isn't one?

The grass is warm in the sun. 

“You shouldn’t trust me,” it says, and it’s voice echoes into the blue sky, soft, caught in the cotton wishes of the clouds. 

“I don’t,” comes the answer, eyes closed, sprawled on the soft grass, warm from the sun, breath even and quiet and slow. 

“Then open your eyes,” it says, and something in it is desperate. There is quiet for a time, only the warm sun and the gentle clouds, unmoving without a breeze to guide them. 

“Lie with me,” he says, and does not answer. 

-

The grass is cold, wet with dew. The sun hides behind clouds, dark and heavy with threat of storm. 

“Good morning,” it says, softly, bearing gifts of blankets and food. There is a wistfulness to it’s sigh, lazy, forgotten. 

“Hello,” comes the answer, and he doesn’t open his eyes, sitting against a tree and listening to the wind whisper nonsense in his ears. 

“Look at me,” it says, sounding almost concerned, and perhaps rightly so with the blood seeping again through the bandage. 

“Sit with me,” he says, and does not answer.

-

The dreams change, each time, in setting, in length, in phrase. 

One thing stays the same- the specter asks him to open his eyes, and he does not. He will not. 

Because once he does, it ends.

He does not want it to end.


End file.
